Language, Culture, Power
Course credits: 6 Class location: 205 Class Meeting time: Mondays, 17:00–19:40 Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Ayşe Çavdar - cavdar_a@auca.kg
Office Hours: Wednesday, 14:30-17:00
Course description:
What do stories do? This course offers a sort of metaphorical archaeology within the monumental structures of language, myths, and narratives. Instead of treating them as media of mere entertainment or cultural decoration, we will discover how they organize perception, distribute legitimacy, and make hierarchies feel "natural." We will find out who is actually telling those stories, who is expected to be silent, and what is the cost of this hidden "organization."
We will read two stories from very different traditions: Sophocles' Antigone and Deli Dumrul from the Book of Dede Korkut; alongside theoretical texts drawn from anthropology, political philosophy, and folklore. Students will choose one of these two stories as their primary text and follow it through a series of thematic questions about death, speech, gender, and authority. After the foundational four weeks, students will take the lead via driving discussion, challenging each other, and bringing their stories into conversation.
Course Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, you will:
- Analyze how myths and narratives function as instruments of power, legitimation, and cultural meaning-making rather than as mere entertainment or decoration.
- Apply foundational theoretical concepts including hegemony, the public transcript, the sexual contract, and parrhesia (and truth regimes), to literary and folkloric texts from different traditions.
- Read closely and comparatively across cultural and historical distance, identifying shared patterns and meaningful differences between Sophocles' Antigone and the Dede Korkut tale of Deli Dumrul.
- Develop and sustain an analytical argument about a primary text across an entire semester, returning to it with increasingly sophisticated tools.
- Recognize how gender, death, speech, and authority are organized differently and similarly across the two traditions we study.
- Engage in structured academic debate, presenting and defending an interpretation while challenging the interpretations of others.
- Reflect on your own thinking through iterative writing, using feedback to revise and deepen your analysis.
AUCA Core Competences
AUCA core competences are: (1) communication skills, (2) critical thinking skills, (3) digital literacy, (4) problem-solving skills, (5) global awareness (effective citizenship), and (6) civic responsibility.
This course primarily addresses critical thinking skills, digital literacy, and global awareness.
Program Competences
Program competences are: (1) advanced theoretical knowledge, (2) critical social and cultural analysis, (3) evidence-based academic writing, (4) ethical and reflexive engagement.
This course addresses all four program competences.
Required readings and course schedule
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Title |
Content |
Reeading |
Activity |
Assignment |
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W 1 |
Sep 21 |
Introduction: Language, mythology, power |
What do stories do? Why myths and narratives are not merely entertainment or cultural decoration but active instruments of meaning-making, legitimation, and power. How does language organize the world, and whose world does it organize? |
Cassirer, Ernst. 1946. “The Place of Language and Myth in the Pattern of Human Culture.” In Language and Myth, translated by Susanne Langer. Dover Publications. Edelman, Murray. 1998. “Language, Myths and Rhetoric.” Society 35 (2). |
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Read the articles after the class… |
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W2 |
Sep 28 |
Foundational concepts: Hegemony, public transcript, patriarchy, state |
How does hegemony operate not through brute force but through cultural forms, and why mythological texts are not primitive relics but sophisticated instruments of meaning and domination? What does violence do in myth? |
Kurtz, Donald V. "Hegemony and Anthropology: Gramsci, Exegeses, Reinterpretations." Critique of Anthropology 16 (2) |
Concept hunt, discussion |
Read the articles before the class |
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W3 |
Oct 5 |
Family, sexual contract |
How do kinship structures organize the distribution of bodies, labor, and legitimacy; and how the "sexual contract" underlies social arrangements that present themselves as neutral or consensual? Who are the parties to the foundational contracts of social life, and on what terms do women enter them? |
Hegarty, Paul. 1999. "Doubling Legitimacy: Reading Rousseau's Contract." French Studies 53 (3). Dalkesen, Nilgün. 2010. "Gender Relations Regulated by Customary Law as Reflected through Legends and Historical Records in the Turkic Societies." Fe Dergi Feminist Eleştiri. |
Concept hunt, discussion |
Read the articles before the class |
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W4 |
Oct 12 |
Antigone and Dumrul |
This week we read our two primary texts. Come to class having read both stories in full. You will leave class having chosen one of them as your primary text for the rest of the semester. |
Sophocles, Antigone, trans by Anne Carson |
Finding shared patterns |
Read the stories before the class |
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W5 |
Oct 19 |
Exam 1: What did you find in these two stories? |
Review all readings from Weeks 1–4. In class, you will write continuously about your chosen story using the conceptual framework we have built together. No new readings this week. |
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W6 |
Oct 26 |
Antigone: Who kills, who mourns |
This week the Antigone group leads to examine the politics of death in Sophocles' play: who has the right to kill, who has the right to grieve, and how the state asserts its authority over both. Mourning is not a private but a political one. Creon's prohibition on Polynices' burial is not merely a punishment; it is a claim over the boundary between the living and the dead. |
Rouse, W. H. D. "The Two Burials in Antigone." The Classical Review 25 (2). |
Feedback for the exam |
First assignment: Re-write your exam at home reflecting on your own writing and feedback |
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W7 |
Nov 2 |
Deli Dumrul: Azrail’s mission |
This week the Dumrul group leads to analyze Azrail (the archangel of death). He is an agent, a functionary, a messenger; a transformative power. Then, what does he transform? Or, what transformation does Azrail indicate? |
Aksüt Çobanoğlu, Seda. "Deli Dumrul Hikayesi'nde ve Everyman'de Ölüm Temsilleri." Motif Akademi Halk Bilimi Dergisi. |
Group presentation and discussion |
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W8 |
No class |
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W9 |
Nov 16 |
Antigone: Parrhessia |
This week the Antigone group leads to discuss the truth regimes and parrhesia. Antigone speaks the truth to power; openly, without hiding, at the cost of her life. What does it mean to speak when silence would be safer, and what kind of subject is produced by that choice. |
Foucault, Michel. "Parrēsia." Critical Inquiry 41 (2). |
Group presentation and discussion |
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W10 |
Nov 23 |
Deli Dumrul: Metamorphosis (New law, new religion) |
This week the Dumrul group leads to analyze the symbol of bridge in the story. Dumrul builds a bridge over a dry riverbed and charges tolls from those who cross and those who do not. This bridge marks a threshold between life and death, between old and new orders, between defiance and submission. |
Yalur, Tolga Theo. 2025. “Myths of the Secular and the Sacred in Turkey’s Cultural Heritage.” HAL. hal-05016378v1. Simmel, George. 1994. “Bridge and Door - Georg Simmel.” In Theory, Culture and Society, translated by Mark Ritter. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. |
Group presentation and discussion |
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W11 |
Nov 30 |
Antigone: Gender and agency |
This week the Antigone group leads to analyze the relation between Antigone and Ismene as two different politics to face with the authority. What does it mean for a woman to act within (and against) a political order that has not designed a place for her agency? We ask not only what Antigone does but what doing costs her, and whether the cost is the condition of her heroism or its undoing. |
Honig, Bonnie. "Ismene's Forced Choice: Sacrifice and Sorority in Sophocles' Antigone." Arethusa 44 (1). |
Group presentation and discussion |
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W12 |
Dec 7 |
Deli Dumrul: Who is Dumrul’s wife? |
This week the Dumrul group leads to discuss the role of Dumrul’s wife in the story. She has no name, no past. She appears when she is needed and offers what no one else will, her life. Is she a model of devotion, a sacrificial function, or something the story cannot quite contain? We also ask a more unsettling question: is she the one who makes Dumrul a ruler? |
Makdisi, George. 1970. "The Marriage of Tughril Beg." International Journal of Middle East Studies 1 (3). |
Group presentation and discussion |
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W 13 |
Dec 14 |
Exam 2: What do Dumrul and Antigone know about each other? |
Review all readings from Weeks 6–11. In class, you will write continuously. This time the question crosses the boundary between your two stories: what do Antigone and Dumrul know about each other? What patterns have you found that neither story could show you alone? |
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W14 |
Dec 21 |
Antigone and Dumrul: Legitimacy and Authority |
This is the final class meeting. Both groups present and challenge each other. In preparation, each group will meet outside of class to develop a shared argument: what does your story reveal about the sources and limits of political legitimacy? Once you have a position, come talk to me. I will read your argument and assign additional readings specific to where your thinking needs to go. You will then prepare your presentation on the basis of those readings. In class, each group presents. Then the floor opens. Each group will press the other: what does your story see that ours cannot? Readings: Assigned individually to each group after consultation with the instructor. |
Feedback for the second exam |
Second assignment: Re-write your exam at home reflecting on your own writing and feedback |
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W15 |
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Final Exam |
Loop writing |
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Assessment and Grading
Concept Hunt and Participation — 15%: At the start of each session, we will briefly identify and discuss a concept from the week's readings. Come prepared. This is not a quiz, it is a warm-up. But it shows whether you have read.
Exam I — 10%: In-class loop writing. Write continuously about your chosen story using the conceptual framework from Weeks 1–4. No right answers, but there are better and worse arguments.
Reflection Paper I — 15%: Rewrite your first exam using my feedback. 2,000 words. Not a summary of what you wrote — a better version of it.
Exam II — 15%: Same format. This time the question crosses the boundary between your two stories. Covers Weeks 6–11.
Reflection Paper II — 15%: Same as above, based on Exam II. 2,000 words.
Final Debate Preparation — 10%: Your group will develop a shared argument about legitimacy and authority in your story. You will consult with me, receive additional readings, and prepare to present and defend your position in the final class. Assessment will be based on the coherence of your argument, the quality of your rebuttals to opposing views, and the effectiveness of your teamwork.
Final Exam — 20%: Loop writing, details will be announced before the exam.
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Grading |
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Assessment |
Percentage |
Description |
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Concept Hunts and Participation |
15% |
Short in-class concept identification at the start of each session. Come prepared or it shows. |
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Exam I |
10% |
In-class loop writing. Write continuously about your chosen story using the conceptual framework from Weeks 1–4. Conceptual analysis, not memorization. |
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Reflection Paper I |
15% |
Rewrite your first exam using my feedback. 2,000 words. Not a summary of what you wrote; a better version of it. |
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Exam II |
15% |
Same format. This time the question crosses the boundary between your two stories. Covers Weeks 6–11. |
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Reflection Paper II |
15% |
Same as above, based on Exam II. 2,000 words. |
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Final Debate Preparation |
10% |
Your group will develop a shared argument about legitimacy and authority in your story. Consult with me, receive additional readings, prepare to present and defend your position in the final class. |
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Final Exam |
20% |
Loop writing. Format to be announced. |
Attendance and Participation Policy
Being in the room is not the same as being in the class. I won't give participation credit just because you showed up and sat there quietly for two hours.
Participation means talking: ask a question, answer one, disagree with the reading, disagree with me. Getting it wrong out loud costs you nothing, that's exactly how you learn. Nobody learns anything by being right on the first attempt.
What actually lowers your grade is staying silent because you're afraid of being wrong. That silence doesn't protect you, it just guarantees I have nothing to grade.
Academic Integrity and AI use policy
Each student in this course is expected to abide by the Code of Conduct. Any work submitted by a student in this course for academic credit will be the student's own work.
All types of plagiarism are strictly prohibited. If a student fails to observe this requirement, I may assign an F grade for the work plagiarized, or an F for the course, depending on the type of assignment. As per AUCA Code of Conduct:
- On the first occasion a student is caught intentionally plagiarizing, an F grade might be assigned of the assignment;
- On the second occasion, the student will fail the course
- If a third case of plagiarism occurs, the student might be subject to more severe penalties.
All cases of plagiarism are reported to the department and are kept record at the Registrar office.
Please refer to Section B Academic Dishonesty: Procedures for Dishonesty Related to a Course, page 19 of the Code of Conduct.
For any reasons of struggle you might have regarding your course performance, please communicate with me. Also, consult the next section for resources and services available to support you.
AI policy for the course:
AI-generated texts submitted as assignments are considered plagiarism and a violation of academic integrity. AI tools may be used only for grammar correction or limited language support, provided that such use is clearly disclosed. If your paper is identified as substantially AI-generated (e.g., through AI-detection tools or instructor evaluation), your original exam grade will be lowered, and you may be required to attend an oral review of your work.
Accommodations
In this course, I am committed to providing an inclusive learning environment that accommodates the diverse needs of all students. If you have a disability or require specific accommodations to participate fully in the course, please contact me as early as possible to discuss your needs. We will work together to ensure that appropriate adjustments are made to support your learning experience.
If you need guidance on choosing your courses to shape your professional profile, or you feel that you need to improve your time management, presentation, writing skills and study skills, I encourage you to connect with the Advising office. The Advising office offers a wide range of practical and creative workshops, and the peer advisors can help you navigate the academic environment. You can read more from the accommodation policy and find you what the university can offer to accommodate your particular needs, here: https://auca.kg/en/p5732652484/
If you find yourself struggling with Writing, Mathematics, Economics, Accounting, Programming, SPSS, Kyrgyz Language, Russian Language, and English, please book an appointment with a tutor from the WARC . You can meet a tutor face to face, or online. Visit the WARC webpage to see some more resources.
If you feel stressed, overwhelmed, you find it difficult to manage your emotions, or to socialize, or you have worries related to your mental health, please do consult with AUCA Counseling service. There are excellent professionals working there and your visits are absolutely anonymous, and free.
I strongly encourage you to read the Code of Conduct and familiarize yourself with your rights and responsibilities.
VIII. Technical support
Ecourse: ecourse@auca.kg
IT related problems, including AUCA usernames and passwords, interactive boards issues: it@auca.kg
- Teachers: Ayse Cavdar
- Teachers: Cholpon Chotaeva
Course description
In this course, we will examine religion/dîn and spirituality as historically contingent and culturally produced categories rather than fixed or universal phenomena. Instead of working with a single definition of religion/dîn and spirituality, we will explore how these concepts and institutions have been formed, translated, contested, and reconfigured across various historical, political, and cultural contexts.
Reading anthropological, historical, and philosophical texts, we will foreground the instability of these categories and emphasize that any scholarly engagement with religion/dîn or spirituality necessarily entails taking a conceptual and methodological position and incurring risks.
- Teachers: Ayse Cavdar
- Teachers: Ruslan Rahimov
- Teachers: Kanat Sultanaliev